It is against the law in Kennesaw, Georgia, to not have a gun.
A city rule from the 1980s says that everyone who lives there has to have guns and ammunition.
Kennesaw’s gun law says: “In order to provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing in city limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition.” Residents with mental or physical disabilities, felony convictions, or religious views that conflict with the law are not allowed to live there.
Derek Easterling, the town’s three-term mayor, told BBC News, “It’s not like you wear it on your hip like in the Wild Wild West.” “We’re not going to knock on your door and say, ‘Let me see your weapon.’”
When asked by BBC if anyone had been charged or arrested for breaking the 1982 law, the mayor said that he and other local officials knew of none.
Some people are proud of the rule, while others are ashamed of it. Based on data from the Kennesaw Police Department, there were no murders in town in 2023, most residents told BBC that the rule keeps people safe. There were, however, two deaths with guns.
People at a nearby pizza place said, “Criminals should be scared because if they break into your house and you’re there, they don’t know what you got.”
A groundskeeper at the Kennesaw First Baptist Church told the BBC, “It’s not the guns that keep the crime rate down here in Kennesaw; it’s the people who own them.” “It doesn’t matter if it’s a gun, a fork, your fist, or a pair of high heels.” We look out for each other and ourselves.
Weatherby used to say he had more than 20 guns, but he doesn’t have any now.
Pat Ferris joined the Kennesaw city council in 1984, just a few years after the gun rule was made. He said it was “more of a political statement than anything else,” and he doesn’t know “how many people even know that the ordinance exists.”
Morton Grove, Illinois, was the first city in the U.S. to make it illegal to own a gun, but Kennesaw was the first city to tell people they had to. At least four other cities in the U.S. have passed rules like this one: Nucla, Colorado; Gun Barrel City, Texas; Virgin, Utah.
Madelyn Orochena, a member of the city council, called the rule “a weird little factoids about our community.”
“Residents will either roll their eyes in a bit of shame or laugh along about it,” she told the news.
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